This invention relates to apparatus facilitating the care of infection-prone and non-ambulatory patients. More particularly this invention relates to a bed cover and water distributing and confining means for bathing a bed-ridden patient.
The care of patients having wounds highly susceptible to infection requires a washing or showering procedure in which the bath area, commonly a shower or hydrotherapy tub, is thoroughly cleaned or sterilized each time so that cross infection of the patients will not occur. Furthermore, the patient must be moved to the bath area which introduces the risk of infection and of the patient falling and becoming further injured.
In hospitals and nursing homes it is generally accepted practice to administer baths to patients by the so called sponge method; namely rubbing the patient's body with a hand held sponge soaked in warm soapy water. This is time-consuming and messy and involves frequent moving of the patient. The rubbing effect may in itself be deleterious in certain disorders. Typically the bed will become somewhat moist and uncomfortable to the patient.
Bed bathing devices disclosed in the prior art do not allow for washing of the patient's head and neck, and do not allow the nurse to physically contact the patient. Therefore, the patient must bathe himself within the confines of such bathing device.
Other bathing devices are large and expensive. Such devices are practical only when used for multiple patients, thereby risking the cross infection of patients. Moreover, bathing devices of this type require that the patient be moved from the bed. In nursing homes, for example, it is generally found that one hour of time is required of a nurse or other health care employee to take a patient from a bed to a bath or shower facility, administer the shower, and safely return the patient to the bed. Such time requirements of the professional staff result in increased costs of health care.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device for bathing a patient in bed, while protecting the bed from moisture.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device of the aforesaid nature which is amenable to low cost manufacture and may be discarded upon discharge of the patient from the hospital.
It is yet another object to provide a device of the aforesaid nature which may be easily deployed and compactly stored in close proximity to the patient.